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Episode 3: Finger Lake

Episode 3: Finger Lake

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 Will shares some stories of the journey from his first run to Finger Lake, and then records audio in the checkpoint itself. Runaway dogs, exciting trail snacks, and inexplicable gatorade-flavored meals. Listen on Apple Podcasts • View Plain Transcript Check out the emails that Buddies received as Will was headed into Finger Lake! Will and Martin Buser just passed! Passing through Skwentna N View Transcript Onward and Other Directions Episode 3: Finger Lake Hi, it’s Will again. Last time we were here, I had just taken off on the very first leg of my very first Iditarod, one of the longest sled dog races in the world. Me and my team of 14 dogs, AKA my best friends recorded some audio about halfway into that very first run. I rambled about a lot of things. My poor spouse, Shawn, who is very logical, is at wit’s end trying to keep track of all these conversations, and I got passed by several teams. For that first run, I stuck to my game plan pretty tightly. Shortly after the recording I made, my team and I pass through Yentna station, the first sort of checkpoint of the race. It’s a “sort-of” checkpoint because there are no drop bags there. Drop bags are the bags that are flown ahead of teams down the trail. There is no way a sled could carry the amount of food that sled dogs eat during a race like this. We packed and mailed about 1200 pounds for this race, and we were very much on the light side of what folks normally pack. Most of that weight is kibble and meat. The dogs eat around 10,000 calories a day while they race. Other supplies that are sent in drop bags or things like blankets to make the dogs cozy at the checkpoints while they rest, human meals and snacks, batteries, gloves, vet supplies, and much more. While Yentna Station did not have bags, it did provide straw and heet — HEET — better known as antifreeze. We burn that in specially made cookers to melt snow and boil water for the dog’s food. It’s an essential component of long-distance mushing. The Iditarod provides heat along the whole trail, including Yentna. As my race plan dictated, I grabbed both straw and heet in Yentna. I was a little surprised to see how close to the start Yentna it was. It registered on my GPS is only 40 miles or so from the start line. According to what the race had told us, it ought to have been about 50 miles. I wondered if Skwentna, the first official actual checkpoint, would really be 72 miles as it was predicted to be. Regardless, my race plan called for me to camp around or just after 50 miles. I debated continuing all the way to Skwentna. I talked in the first recording about how warm the first day was. But by the time I hit Yentna, the sun was starting to set, and the temperature was dropping. The dogs were much happier to have some cooler weather and were starting to move well. Its 72-mile run wouldn’t be entirely out of their wheelhouse. But the whole reason for my plan to camp before Skwentna was to avoid the notorious hullabaloo that happens with the whole field of mushers camped at the first checkpoint. I wanted the dogs to get a nice rest. Plus, with COVID restrictions in place, it sounded like I’d be sleeping next to my sled either way. I’d much rather do that in a camping setting alone on the side of the trail versus a checkpoint where teams would be coming and going with a lot of commotion. One of the key elements of strategy of a race like the Iditarod is determining when and where to rest, and for how long. I had laid out my race plan. It was a slightly ballsy strategy, I was aiming to do a lot of long runs. The reason I was aiming for this was the performance of the team this season, and what they seemed to be excelling at. It was the long runs where they were shining, so I decided to take the best advantage of that that I could. My speed would be consistent if I was lucky. I aimed for eight to nine miles per hour the whole race. On our first run, it was a little less than that because of the sunny slog through the middle of the day. The only other major factor was seeing how long to rest. My plan aimed for four and six hour rests. The first dress we’d take would be a four hour rest at our 50 mile camp. It had gotten dark by the time we found a place to camp just around 50 miles. We were able to snag a nice pull off made by a snow machine that veered off the trail. I started my clock for the countdown of when we’d leave. During a break, the dogs rest and eat, but the musher works. This is the time that the musher becomes actually useful to the team. I did my best to maintain efficiency as I pulled off dog booties, laid out straw for the dogs to bed down on, put coats on everyone so they’d stay warm and snuggly, and prepared and fed dinner to the dogs. I put one of my own vacuum sealed meals — I think it was a calzone — into the water as it heated up and scarfed down my own dinner between chores. I checked everyone’s feet, meticulously noting previously ...
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